It would certainly not be hyperbolic to say that Angela Konrad and Anne-Marie Cadieux were dazzled — and still are — by the book. sad tiger by Neige Sinno, winner of the Prix Femina, among other prestigious awards. “It’s a brilliant, sensitive work,” says the actress. “The power of the words and the reflection transports us. It covers all the questions we could ask ourselves. Can violence be aestheticized, for example? The author takes a look at what she has experienced that is both lucid and artistic.”
What the French writer suffered, and which is the subject of this book halfway between a story and an essay, is repeated sexual abuse by her stepfather when she was a child. However, according to Angela Konrad, who praises the singularity of the author’s approach, the different perspectives she takes as well as the nuances of her speech, “this is not a book about rape, but rather about the journey of someone faced with the irreparable, the unforgivable. […] It also questions the function of literature not as a therapy or as a catharsis, but as a power. I believe that there is something there of the order ofempowerment. »
Thus, the desire to share this very special work – in which Neige Sinno does not just evoke the sexual violence she survived, but analyzes the scope of the trauma and tries to enter the head of her tormentor, to decipher his psyche – was born promptly after Cadieux recommended the publication to Konrad and she had read it. However, the path leading to the reading, which will take place on the occasion of the International Literature Festival (FIL), was not without its bumps.
First, the artistic director of Usine C did not immediately obtain the rights to the book, Sinno refusing any stage adaptation. No matter, the director called the publisher, POL, to explain that she felt she had understood the “project of the book”, that she believed in the importance of making this statement public and that she intended to offer “a sober reading that seeks neither to dramatize nor to symbolize and that remains as close as possible to the text”. Arguments to which the author gave in.
But the game was not yet won. “It’s the most difficult adaptation I’ve ever done in my life,” maintains the woman of the theatre. “Because of the complexity of the work. These are arguments that are extremely well constructed, that are multifaceted, multiperspective. You can’t cut them easily.” She describes her first draft as a “defensive version.” “That is to say,” she specifies, “I had concentrated on things that are of the order of rational thought.” To protect herself, unconsciously, from the emotional charge of Sinno’s words. The final version, Konrad believes that it was “made by two, with Anne-Marie,” which the recipient of this recognition is reluctant to endorse, wanting to leave the credit for the adaptation to her colleague.
It is a brilliant, sensitive work, says the actress. The power of the words, of the reflection, transports us. It covers all the questions we could ask ourselves. Can we aestheticize violence, for example? The author takes a look at what she has experienced that is both lucid and artistic.
Two women in art
The mutual esteem that these two artists have for each other, as well as their synergy, seems undeniable. They confirm that they felt a “love at first sight” for each other when they worked together on the theatrical fresco based on Virginie Despentes’ book, Vernon Subutex. “Angela has an extraordinary creative freedom. I would follow her anywhere,” says Cadieux, who praises in the same breath the intelligence, sensitivity, critical spirit and humor of his opposite number. She is also not short of praise for the actress: “Anne-Marie has a thought on art, that brings me very close to her. Her brilliance, her freedom, her intellectual curiosity… for a director, it’s magnificent to be able to work with these data.”
Angela Konrad also admits to admiring the bravery of the performer when she attends his reading of sad tiger : ” [Ça revient] to what, for me, is the foundation of theatricality, that is, someone who is sitting with us has the courage to stand up, take a step forward and turn around. That’s what I see with her. Her courage and her power overwhelm me. It makes me want to cry.”
For both of them, it goes without saying that the individual attendance of a literary work differs greatly from the collective experience of a reading. “Theatre is the place of this co-presence of spectators and actors in a shared compassion,” explains the director. “I have always thought that the darkness in the room is made so that we stand side by side at the edge of the abyss in order to look at what is staring back at us… At the edge of the abyss, we cannot be one behind the other, we can only be side by side. Ideally, we hold hands. That’s why I like it when the actors hold hands at the end of a show and form a line to greet: they themselves lean over this abyss that we have just looked at.”